- Home
- Speakers
- Adolf Schlatter
- Adolf Schlatter Quotes
Adolf Schlatter
Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938). Born on August 16, 1852, in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to Stephan, a pharmacist and lay Baptist preacher, and Wilhelmine Schlatter, Adolf Schlatter was a Swiss Protestant theologian, scholar, and occasional preacher whose work profoundly shaped New Testament studies. Raised in a pietistic family, he converted early, influenced by his grandmother Anna Schlatter-Bernet, a noted ecumenist. He studied theology and philosophy at Basel and Tübingen (1871–1875), earning his Habilitation in 1880. Ordained in the Swiss Reformed Church, he briefly served as a deacon in Neumünster, Zürich (1875–1876), and pastor in Kesswil-Uttwil (1876–1880), preaching sermons rooted in biblical exegesis. His academic career overshadowed his pastoral work, with professorships at Bern (1881–1888), Greifswald (1888–1893), Berlin (1893–1898), and Tübingen (1898–1922), where he mentored figures like Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth. Schlatter authored over 400 works, including The Faith in the New Testament (1885), The History of the Christ (1921), and Do We Know Jesus? (1937), emphasizing empirical theology and Christ’s centrality. In Berlin, he challenged Adolf von Harnack’s liberalism, advocating scriptural authority. Married to Susanna Schoop in 1878, he had five children; she died in 1907. His later years, marked by distress over Nazism, saw controversial ties to Gerhard Kittel and a 1935 pamphlet criticized for anti-Semitic tones, though he opposed Nazi paganism. Schlatter died on May 19, 1938, in Tübingen, saying, “Jesus is the center of all theology.”
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
Adolf Schlatter emphasizes the importance of reading and interpreting the New Testament with a focus on God-directed ideas, warning against solely explaining religion based on worldly factors. He highlights the necessity for theological faculties to maintain a strong foundation in God-centered concepts to avoid reaching a dead end. Schlatter also stresses the significance of mastering scientific methods in theology to ensure progress in the coming decades. Additionally, he encourages deriving investigative questions from the New Testament material itself rather than solely relying on dogmatic traditions.
Adolf Schlatter Quotes
“If it ever really comes to pass that our students read the New Testament just like they read Homer, and our exegetes explain it like they do Homer with determined elimination of every God-directed idea, then the theological faculties have reached the end of the line.” -Adolf Schlatter “Now if we determine to explain religion based on solely this-worldly factors, then from the outset our observation consistently stands in radical contradiction to our object, which emphatically does not lend itself to such explanation, but loudly and steadfastly insists upon the concept of God.” - Adolf Schlatter “The question whether the coming decades will bring defeat or progress for theology in Germany depends to a considerable degree on the skill with which we master the methods of scientific labor.” - Adolf Schlatter "When one considers that the purpose of dogmatic work is to gain knowledge, whereas the purpose of the New Testament word is beyond this to call men through God to God, and when one recognizes that dogmatic work has been and must be influenced by later situations and knowledge, it becomes advisable not to take the questions that guide the investigation from the dogmatic tradition, but to get them from the New Testament material itself." - Adolf Schlatter
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download
Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938). Born on August 16, 1852, in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to Stephan, a pharmacist and lay Baptist preacher, and Wilhelmine Schlatter, Adolf Schlatter was a Swiss Protestant theologian, scholar, and occasional preacher whose work profoundly shaped New Testament studies. Raised in a pietistic family, he converted early, influenced by his grandmother Anna Schlatter-Bernet, a noted ecumenist. He studied theology and philosophy at Basel and Tübingen (1871–1875), earning his Habilitation in 1880. Ordained in the Swiss Reformed Church, he briefly served as a deacon in Neumünster, Zürich (1875–1876), and pastor in Kesswil-Uttwil (1876–1880), preaching sermons rooted in biblical exegesis. His academic career overshadowed his pastoral work, with professorships at Bern (1881–1888), Greifswald (1888–1893), Berlin (1893–1898), and Tübingen (1898–1922), where he mentored figures like Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth. Schlatter authored over 400 works, including The Faith in the New Testament (1885), The History of the Christ (1921), and Do We Know Jesus? (1937), emphasizing empirical theology and Christ’s centrality. In Berlin, he challenged Adolf von Harnack’s liberalism, advocating scriptural authority. Married to Susanna Schoop in 1878, he had five children; she died in 1907. His later years, marked by distress over Nazism, saw controversial ties to Gerhard Kittel and a 1935 pamphlet criticized for anti-Semitic tones, though he opposed Nazi paganism. Schlatter died on May 19, 1938, in Tübingen, saying, “Jesus is the center of all theology.”